“Growth has its season.” Chance the Gardener from director Hal Ashby’s film Being There said that. He had just left the townhouse of his deceased employer. For the first time. Sheltered and shocked, the simpleminded gardener was suddenly thrust into Washington politics and high society. And he excelled, this clueless gardener of ours. He went on, “There are spring and summer, but there are also fall and winter. And then spring and summer again. As long as the roots are not severed, all is well and all will be well.” (If you haven’t seen the film, you’re missing out).

And although Chance the Gardener said it, Carolina Herrera Creative Director, Wes Gordon, spun it into a strikingly thoughtful runway show. 

Courtesy of Carolina Herrera

Upon finishing Being There, Gordon mentally preserved the purity of protagonist Chance the Gardener, an innocence that would come to inform Carolina Herrera’s Fall 2025 runway. 

Courtesy of Carolina Herrera

Jacquard in floral lurex (a shiny, metallic yarn) blooms into columns of precisely cut gowns. Pencil skirts are brimming with buds, while sparkling gold bullion tulip embroidery entwines around dramatic coats and dresses. Countless minutely plucked pintuck pleats are swathed in a cornflower blue, and silk rosettes, petals crafted one by one, bloom at the hip. The line’s intricaciesーextraordinary webs of lace and articulately floral motifsーare emboldened by a diverse array of exaggerated silhouettes.  

Courtesy of Carolina Herrera

The collection’s rich color palette knows no bounds. Deep reds and burgeoning blue frolic amongst timeless greyscales and vibrant pinks. Inspired by Sonia Delaunay’s watercolor on paper, “Rhythm Color,” the collection’s contrasting pigments exist in cacophonous harmony. Yes, we just phrased a contradiction, but Gordon’s scrupulous pairings use those bold colors in imaginative ways, ones that produce a dynamic, nonetheless unified, composition ー not unlike Delaunay’s signature color theory of Orphism. 

Courtesy of Carolina Herrera

For Carolina Herrera’s Fall 2025 runway, Gordon implores us to tend to our wardrobes the way we would meticulously tend to our garden. Carefully and constantly, devoted to a distilled sense of beauty inherent in every seed and bud. Chance the Gardener, if a real person (and alive today, and enmeshed in the luxury industry, and a witness of fast fashion’s relentless crusade) would say the same.